Encouraging public service improvement through shared learning and knowledge exchange

Ministry of Justice: Continuous Improvement and Delivering Results

Over the next few weeks, our blog will be showcasing the winners and those that were nominated for the All Wales Continuous Improvement Community awards. Caroline Phillips from the Ministry of Justice tells us about their Shared Services and why they won the ‘Delivering Results – Doing it Better’ category.

During a time of change and uncertainty, the Ministry of Justice Customer Contact Services has transformed the way it works by empowering its frontline staff at all levels to make decisions and lead by example.

As an organisation for the past 8 months we have delivered a project to develop people driven strategies, structures, systems and cultures/climates to succeed in achieving organisational effectiveness and an advantage within the boundaries of ever growing demands. We have proven that by investing time, communication and training in our front line staff in order to build on knowledge and experience, our staff are energised and motivated resulting in more queries being resolved first time and an increase in our Customer Satisfaction scores.

Improvements can though only be realised by a capable and driven workforce, which is why I am greatly passionate about developing our staff, to give them confidence and to allow them to take ownership for key operational activities. Ministry of Justice Customer Contact Services is highly dependant on IT applications, platforms and systems; however, I am certainly of the opinion that the main competitive advantage for my department and for our organisation as a whole is our people.

In addition to excellent results, we’ve also managed to create a team who really care, take pride in their work and have a customer focus at their heart. We now have team members, who of their own free will go that extra mile, sometimes beyond their scheduled hours to ensure each customer receives a full resolution to their query. This type of attitude and commitment is priceless in a fast paced customer service role and our staff really care about the end results.

In the initial stages of the project, we knew that challenging an entrenched way of working was always going to be difficult. However, I am proud that I have a workforce who are now more capable and confident at carrying out their operational roles. Our staff are creative in devising solutions to problems and take greater ownership of key business activities, allowing my management team and I to have a greater leadership focus and to concentrate on the more strategic aspects of our roles.